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Speaker 10: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 10: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 10: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK every
Speaker 10: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 10: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 10: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 7: Good Evening. One day, Andrea Yates was a loving mother.
Speaker 7: The next the nation was shocked by the death of
Speaker 7: her five innocent children. The nine one one called it
Speaker 7: shocked country. I just killed my children? Why were they killed?
Speaker 7: On June twenty, two thousand and one, in a middle
Speaker 7: class Houston suburb, Andrea Yates and her husband, Russell, a
Speaker 7: Nassa engineer, prepared for the routine week day ahead. But
Speaker 7: before the morning was over, tragedy would strike the quiet
Speaker 7: family and turn the day into a nightmare. Shortly before
Speaker 7: ten am, Andrea calmly summoned the police with a grim confession.
Speaker 7: One by one, Andrea Yate's children, aged ages six months
Speaker 7: to seven years, had been drowned in their bathtub. No
Speaker 7: one who knew Andrea could picture the devoted mother capable
Speaker 7: of such an unbelievable crime, or imagine the terror in
Speaker 7: the eyes of her trusting children as their father struggled
Speaker 7: between overwhelming grief and loyalty to his imprisoned wife, an
Speaker 7: outraged nation struggled with an unfathomable question. Breaking Point provides
Speaker 7: a harrowing portrait of the suffocating darkness at the heart
Speaker 7: of one all American family and exposes the private demons
Speaker 7: that pushed a mother over the edge. The book that
Speaker 7: we're featuring this evening is Breaking Point with my special
Speaker 7: guest journalist and author, Susie Spencer. Welcome back to the program,
Speaker 7: and thank you for agreeing to this interview. Susie Spencer, Well,
Speaker 7: thank you for having me. Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 7: This is an incredible tale. Now gone on to true
Speaker 7: crime history. And tell us a little bit about this
Speaker 7: newest edition and tell us when it was originally released.
Speaker 7: Tell us a little bit about those details, please, Well, the.
Speaker 9: Book first came out just about a month or two
Speaker 9: before Andrea's first trial, So I did not get to
Speaker 9: include my trial coverage. And I was there all but
Speaker 9: one day of the first trial. So for the past
Speaker 9: thirteen and a half years, I've been trying to get
Speaker 9: that coverage in, and diversion books came to me and
Speaker 9: they let me put that in. And then also I
Speaker 9: went to doctor Lucy per Year, who was the expert
Speaker 9: psychiatric witness for the defense, and said, give me something new,
Speaker 9: and to my great shock, Lucy said, come to my house.
Speaker 9: The files are yours. So she let me into her
Speaker 9: garage apartment and I sat there for a few hours
Speaker 9: going through all of her files. And I am the
Speaker 9: first reporter, in fact, maybe the first person she's ever
Speaker 9: shown the files too. And then at the end, because
Speaker 9: the story the crime working on the case just really
Speaker 9: got to doctor Puryeer because she had a child who
Speaker 9: was the same age as Andrea's daughter Mary, and so
Speaker 9: she's like, I don't know what to do with these
Speaker 9: files anymore. Take what you want and keep them. So
Speaker 9: right now I have in my hallway a huge box
Speaker 9: of the defense files and so I have woven that
Speaker 9: into the book as well as my trial coverage.
Speaker 7: And congratulations on that as well, because for all those
Speaker 7: people that think they know the story, even if you
Speaker 7: were lucky enough to have your book from back in
Speaker 7: two thousand and.
Speaker 9: Two, was it, Yes, it came out the end of
Speaker 9: two thousand and one, beginning two thousand and two.
Speaker 7: If those people and anybody that thinks they really know
Speaker 7: this story, with the access to the information that you
Speaker 7: have added to the original story, this is just an
Speaker 7: incredible tale that I think, as we spoke just before
Speaker 7: we went on air, this is some incredible stuff where
Speaker 7: we'll talk about this a little bit later where fiction
Speaker 7: and television and criminal profilers and the FBI and everybody
Speaker 7: gets involved in this, and this really does captivate and resonate,
Speaker 7: I mean, is an understatement with the American society and
Speaker 7: still is an issue that people are grappling with and
Speaker 7: still scratching their head over. So this is a landmark
Speaker 7: case and historic case, and let's get to that right now.
Speaker 7: So tell us a little bit about Andrea Pia Kennedy.
Speaker 7: And unlike the book I mentioned that, you talk about
Speaker 7: the crime unfolding and the case unfolding and it's very
Speaker 7: very interesting. But let's first talk a little bit about
Speaker 7: Andrea Pia Kennedy and just a little bit about her
Speaker 7: background before we get into this incredible tale.
Speaker 9: Well, her dad was Irish Catholic, her mom was German.
Speaker 9: They met during the war World War Two because her dad,
Speaker 9: I believe, was a pilot and he was very proud
Speaker 9: of his Irish Catholic Kennedy name. And she was brought
Speaker 9: up devout Catholic until her father lost his job and
Speaker 9: then he kind of lost his faith for a while
Speaker 9: and they quit going to church. But in some ways
Speaker 9: they were still trying to emulate the Kennedys in that
Speaker 9: they loved to sail, they loved to be out doors,
Speaker 9: they wanted to be the best at everything. So Andrea
Speaker 9: was a championship swimmer and her high school she was
Speaker 9: National Honor Society. And then she went to college and
Speaker 9: became a registered nurse and worked at M. D Anderson
Speaker 9: with cancer patients.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about Andrea Kennedy, and she was, as
Speaker 7: you described in the book, she was quite a striking
Speaker 7: looking woman, a good looking woman, and you said she
Speaker 7: excelled in sports. You do talk about how no one
Speaker 7: really could comment her being so gregarious, but it wasn't
Speaker 7: like she was totally withdrawn, so sort of sort of
Speaker 7: a neutral sort of assessment of her. But it was
Speaker 7: interesting how the two met. Russell and her met, so
Speaker 7: tell us how they met well.
Speaker 9: Andrea never dated, like you say, she was kind of reserved, shy.
Speaker 9: She did have a close group of very you know
Speaker 9: or small group of very close friends, but she never dated.
Speaker 9: She was a wallflower and I think took a little
Speaker 9: bit of pride in that. And then she did date
Speaker 9: after she got out of excuse me, out of college.
Speaker 9: She did date one guy, but that went sour, and
Speaker 9: so she was still a loner. And one day she
Speaker 9: was in the swimming pool at her apartment complex and
Speaker 9: she was there just floating in the water with her
Speaker 9: arms outstretched. And Andrea was tall and shapely, you know,
Speaker 9: had a great build from Oliver swimming. And Rusty Yates
Speaker 9: was who lived in the apartment complex, spotted her and
Speaker 9: just thought she was gorgeous and couldn't take her his
Speaker 9: eyes off of her. But they're both a little bit
Speaker 9: on the shy side. So she left, but she did
Speaker 9: notice him, and a few weeks later she one night
Speaker 9: was feeling kind of lonely, had gone out to dinner
Speaker 9: by herself, and went and knocked on Rusty's door and said, Hey,
Speaker 9: my car got hit. Do you buy any chance know
Speaker 9: who hit it? And this was all a setup. Yes,
Speaker 9: her car had really gotten hit, but you know, she
Speaker 9: just went to Rusty to try to open the conversation.
Speaker 9: And when Rusty answered the door, he was on the
Speaker 9: phone to someone else and his mouth just dropped, going, God,
Speaker 9: got guy, you know this gorgeous woman. So then he
Speaker 9: you know, talked to her a little bit and then
Speaker 9: went back to his friend on the phone and said,
Speaker 9: I just met the most gorgeous woman. And they started dating.
Speaker 9: The first dates were kind of awkward, you know, dinner
Speaker 9: in a movie, but you know, with him, neither one
Speaker 9: very much talking. But it was something that worked. And
Speaker 9: he was a devout Christian, although he kind of gets
Speaker 9: kind of iffy about when he became a Christian. She
Speaker 9: became one also through him. But yet they lived together
Speaker 9: and had sex before they got married, which shocked everyone.
Speaker 7: Now we just we will be talking about this more.
Speaker 7: But when you talked about him being to devout Christian
Speaker 7: and for all those people, because I was raised Roman Catholic,
Speaker 7: but there is different degrees of I guess the vouteness.
Speaker 7: So what was a little bit of that, what was
Speaker 7: the feature of her religious background in terms of promiscuity
Speaker 7: or the importance of, say, sexual chastity. Was there any
Speaker 7: indication that there was any kind of prudishness associated with
Speaker 7: the religiosity that she was involved with, if.
Speaker 9: I remember correctly. Even her mother called her a prude.
Speaker 9: She didn't like to be touched. She once that she
Speaker 9: and Rusty got together, she would dress and undress in
Speaker 9: a closet. Rusty says that was because she was so shy.
Speaker 9: Doctor Purryer told me that was because Andrea felt like
Speaker 9: every time she undressed in front of Rusty he wanted
Speaker 9: to have sex, and that was the way to stop him.
Speaker 9: But yes, she was basically a prude, and she always
Speaker 9: wanted to be and was the good girl, study hard,
Speaker 9: work hard, help other people, be a good nurse, do
Speaker 9: kind deeds for the elderly and firm. She was just
Speaker 9: the cliche good girl.
Speaker 7: Now let's talk about religion while we're still on it,
Speaker 7: and that she finds out about an evangelist named Michael.
Speaker 7: We're a neki. Yes, if I mispronounced that, you can
Speaker 7: correct me if you want, But when is it exactly?
Speaker 7: And if it's if I'm jumping ahead let me know
Speaker 7: as well, when does it that she discovers this evangelist
Speaker 7: Michael We're an Eki and what is it that he
Speaker 7: is saying in terms of his his religious abews.
Speaker 9: Well, we need to jump back to Rusty for a
Speaker 9: little bit to get into that, because she met Warren
Speaker 9: Eki through Rusty and Rusty was born in New York
Speaker 9: State and then when he was a little kid, they
Speaker 9: moved to Tennessee and one of his grandfathers, I can't
Speaker 9: remember if it was on his mother or father's side.
Speaker 9: I think on his father's side was a preacher. And
Speaker 9: when they moved to Tennessee, they eventually joined a Methodist
Speaker 9: church and were very very active in it, and everyone
Speaker 9: considered Rusty again a devout, devoted Christian. He was in
Speaker 9: the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He was also a good boy, smart, funny,
Speaker 9: but shy. He would get really nervous when he had
Speaker 9: to talk to people. Took great pride in his brain.
Speaker 9: But he was also a star athlete on the football team.
Speaker 9: And then his father died when he was in high school.
Speaker 9: He seemed to crack down on himself more. Rusty did
Speaker 9: studying harder so he could get a scholarship, and when
Speaker 9: he went off to college, everyone thought Rusty was this
Speaker 9: great Christian. Inside Rusty was doubting Christianity and he was
Speaker 9: going to Auburn University and one day he was walking
Speaker 9: across campus and he heard this preacher who was attracted
Speaker 9: him because he wouldn't take flack off of people. He
Speaker 9: was sort of a smart alec and Rusty liked what
Speaker 9: he was saying and started following him and called up
Speaker 9: his mother one night and said, I finally get it.
Speaker 9: I finally believe. And so for years he stayed in
Speaker 9: touch with Michael Warnecki, who was a traveling evangelist who
Speaker 9: went to college for college to college, preferably in the
Speaker 9: Sun beltan excuse me, the Bible Belt, even though he
Speaker 9: did go all over the world, and basically what he
Speaker 9: did was get there with huge placards and tell everybody
Speaker 9: you're going to Hell. Like when he was at the
Speaker 9: University of Oklahoma, he said, I hate oe you because
Speaker 9: that's where the worst Christians are, and Christians are horrible.
Speaker 9: He didn't even want to be called a Christian. But
Speaker 9: the basically everybody in the world but Michael Warrenecki and
Speaker 9: his family were going to Hell, and some reason or
Speaker 9: other this attracted Rusty. Rusty says that Warren Ecki got
Speaker 9: more outrageous over the years and that he sort of
Speaker 9: withdrew some. But Rusty introduced Andrea to the warren Necks.
Speaker 9: They stayed in touch, they exchanged letters. Rusty would send
Speaker 9: them money, Andrea would bake goods for them and send
Speaker 9: them cookies and cakes, and that just developed a relationship.
Speaker 9: Whereas Rusty really wanted to be like the Warren eckis
Speaker 9: that you travel on a bus. They they had a
Speaker 9: converted bus that they lived in, and you go traveling
Speaker 9: the world to bring people to Christ and you taught
Speaker 9: your kids. You didn't really have any place to call home.
Speaker 9: You didn't have any material possessions. Your life was just
Speaker 9: getting on the bus going to colleges, pull out the
Speaker 9: banners saying you're going to Hell, and scream at everybody
Speaker 9: telling him that they're going to hell and that they're
Speaker 9: evil and horrible.
Speaker 7: Now, this is in congress to the job that he
Speaker 7: has and the intellect that he has for those people
Speaker 7: that think that there is a separation between this rational
Speaker 7: thought and some irrational thought. When we get into what
Speaker 7: exactly this Michael Waerniki preaches and some of the things
Speaker 7: that his wife and he advised Andrea. So let's talk
Speaker 7: about his NASAU job and his relationships there and that
Speaker 7: sort of dichotomy with his intellect and this fervent religiosity.
Speaker 9: Well, you're exactly right, because he was on scholarship. He
Speaker 9: was basically he considered himself a math genius. When he
Speaker 9: was in college, he did a summer internship or actually
Speaker 9: I don't know if it is a summer a year long,
Speaker 9: but an internship at NASA and clear Lake or Houston
Speaker 9: area where he worked on I think the super shuttle.
Speaker 9: And then when he got out of college he went
Speaker 9: to work for NASA, and when the murders happened, he
Speaker 9: was an eighty thousand dollars a year at NASA engineer.
Speaker 9: And when you're talking to Rusty, which I spent many
Speaker 9: hours talking to him, he loves to show off his
Speaker 9: intellect and he is very bright, and he talks so
Speaker 9: over my head when it comes to computers and space stuff,
Speaker 9: and I'm you know, he's very, very bright, and it
Speaker 9: is kind of confusing. But NASA engineers, or that I
Speaker 9: learned from the people who live in that area are very,
Speaker 9: very focused. And that's what I learned about Rusty. He
Speaker 9: has tunnel vision, and when he sees something that he wants,
Speaker 9: he's going to zero in on that and nothing else matters.
Speaker 9: He doesn't really hear anything else. So this is just
Speaker 9: my supposition I'm coming to as I'm talking to you,
Speaker 9: that he is just so focused that it wouldn't really
Speaker 9: matter what the warren NECKI or what anyone said about
Speaker 9: the warren neckis. And Rusty didn't have a lot of friends.
Speaker 9: And one of the things I noticed when I was
Speaker 9: around Rusty is when you're with him, he is so
Speaker 9: prove persuasive that he'll say things, didn't you just go, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: that makes sense, and then you walk away and you
Speaker 9: can think about it by yourself and go, that's bonkers.
Speaker 9: And Andrea never had the chance to walk away. And
Speaker 9: since Rusty didn't have anyone to tell him, you know
Speaker 9: that this guy is bonkers because he wasn't going to
Speaker 9: reveal this to anyone else. So that when I say
Speaker 9: bonkers that Michael Warnecky is bonkers, you know, Rusty's not
Speaker 9: going to hear that. And I met one other person
Speaker 9: who was a Warnecky follower and a very bright, kind guy,
Speaker 9: and it took him twelve years to wake up to
Speaker 9: Warnicky was doing. So it's not something that has to
Speaker 9: do with intellect.
Speaker 7: Now, let's talk about the most important aspect of this
Speaker 7: story and issues in this story. Again their religion and
Speaker 7: their religiosity or their faith will say, because they weren't
Speaker 7: always connected with a specific religion per se. Let's talk
Speaker 7: about what their idea was, what Andrea's idea was, and
Speaker 7: what Russell's idea was in terms of marriage and the
Speaker 7: care of children and a woman staying home, those issues,
Speaker 7: those critical issues. What were Andrea's views and what were
Speaker 7: Russell's views regarding that well, and.
Speaker 9: Again this was greatly influenced by Michael Warnecki, and that
Speaker 9: is that the wife is a Jezebel. She is a seductress.
Speaker 9: She's evil, she's horrible, But yet she is supposed to
Speaker 9: stay home, do everything, the husband says, take care of
Speaker 9: the children, not work outside of the home. Just do everything,
Speaker 9: the husband says. Did that answer your question?
Speaker 7: Sure? So she did want to have children, and they
Speaker 7: got to that shortly after their marriage, in short order,
Speaker 7: and then within a year that she was pregnant again.
Speaker 7: So tell us about the marriage and the relationship and
Speaker 7: the child rearing in that first couple of years.
Speaker 9: Yes, it was. Andrea worked as a nurse until she
Speaker 9: had her first child. Then it was known that she
Speaker 9: would immediately quit work and as far as having children,
Speaker 9: they did not use birth control. Their deal was that
Speaker 9: they were going to have as many children as God allowed,
Speaker 9: and it didn't matter if Andrea got six and the
Speaker 9: doctor said, don't have any more children, because surely you'll
Speaker 9: have another. About a postpartum depression and psychosis, Rusty explained
Speaker 9: it to me one night just before the trial, that
Speaker 9: we thought of postpartum depression and psychosis is like somebody
Speaker 9: offered us a Mercedes Binz which would be the child.
Speaker 9: And to get this free Mercedes Bins, because we're going
Speaker 9: to give it to you for free, you're going to
Speaker 9: have the flu for a couple of weeks. And he said,
Speaker 9: so of course you'd take that chance that, Okay, I
Speaker 9: can get this Mercedes Bins, but I'm going to have
Speaker 9: the flu for two weeks, but I'll get over it.
Speaker 9: So he considered it that God's given him this free
Speaker 9: trial child, but Andrea is going to get sick, perhaps
Speaker 9: with postpartum depression and psychosis. But it's no problem. We
Speaker 9: will just give her the meds that got her well
Speaker 9: before and everything will be okay. He did not pay
Speaker 9: attention because again Rusty has tunnel vision. He goes after
Speaker 9: what he wants and doesn't let anything else. And I'm
Speaker 9: not saying he's a bad guy. I'm just saying he
Speaker 9: has tunnel vision. And so and the doctor who treated
Speaker 9: her for postpartiment depression and psychosis said, do not have
Speaker 9: any more kids, because she will surely have this again,
Speaker 9: and each time she has it will it will get worse.
Speaker 9: They ignored that. They chose to ignore that.
Speaker 7: Now there's other things involved here, because it's complicated because
Speaker 7: Rusty at some point says that and does enough research.
Speaker 7: Because I find this odd that he has again this
Speaker 7: evangelical interest in belief, and yet then again he's again
Speaker 7: the sort of a dichotomy where he's going online and
Speaker 7: finding and researching Helldall and the newer antipsychotic medication and dosage,
Speaker 7: actually sparring with the psychiatrist at one point saying, you know,
Speaker 7: you should give her this much and you can't increase
Speaker 7: in terms of milligram that dosage because of this tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit about how much again, try to
Speaker 7: get me to understand how much faith he has in
Speaker 7: the medication to be able to work perfectly despite not
Speaker 7: having it work perfectly the very time first time she
Speaker 7: experienced the drug.
Speaker 9: Well, no, again, we sort of need to back up
Speaker 9: because Rusty, according to him, he sort of distanced himself
Speaker 9: from the Warren Echis because he bought their bus, their
Speaker 9: six hundred and fifty square foot bus I believe it was,
Speaker 9: and then he got upset with the bus, and I
Speaker 9: think he kind of distanced himself from the Warren Echis
Speaker 9: at that point because he didn't think the bus was
Speaker 9: what they had presented it to be. But Andrea stayed
Speaker 9: in touch with him, So Rusty is sort of leaving
Speaker 9: being their fold according to him, and at this point
Speaker 9: when Andrea is sick. At the beginning, like with their
Speaker 9: first bout of it, Rusty did not believe in mental illness.
Speaker 9: He told his neighbors this, I don't believe in mental illness.
Speaker 9: It's just a matter of buck up. But after Andrea's
Speaker 9: first diagnosed case of postpartum depression in psychosis, Rusty kind
Speaker 9: of learned and he learned about the medicines. So then
Speaker 9: on this last bout when the psychiatrist, because they went
Speaker 9: to a different psychiatrist because the one that Andrea had
Speaker 9: originally gone to was in Houston and that was on
Speaker 9: the wrong side of town from what Rusty needed. Plus
Speaker 9: he had a big project at NASA, and going to
Speaker 9: the other side of town finding babysitters just didn't work
Speaker 9: with his schedule. So he found another facility and psychiatrist
Speaker 9: in the area where they were, and he asked someone
Speaker 9: if the psychiatrist any good, and somebody said, oh, yes,
Speaker 9: they're all good or whatever, and Rusty said, at that point,
Speaker 9: I didn't realize there was a difference in doctors. And
Speaker 9: so when they went to this new hospital and with
Speaker 9: a new doctor, Rusty kept saying, put her on holdall
Speaker 9: that worked before, and instead they were saying, no, that
Speaker 9: has bad side effects. We need this other drug, these
Speaker 9: newer drugs, but they weren't working. So that's when Rusty
Speaker 9: wentz started begging, saying put her on holdall that works.
Speaker 7: At the same time, Andrea is corresponding with Rachel, we're NECKI,
Speaker 7: which is Michael's wife. Now, how much does she subscribe
Speaker 7: to the same evangelical philosophy as her husband and as
Speaker 7: a result, what does she specifically say to Andrea when
Speaker 7: Andrea says something like I'm feeling lonely, oh.
Speaker 9: Man, and I wish I could pull that up on
Speaker 9: my book right now because I was given or I
Speaker 9: should say, I was slipped some letters.
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Speaker 9: Details Arnecki wrote to Andrea, and they were just horrendous
Speaker 9: of telling her how evil she was, that she was
Speaker 9: an evil witch, and that she was going to hell,
Speaker 9: and that she hoped that she could be saved. And
Speaker 9: one of the things I learned while working on this
Speaker 9: book is when somebody is psychotic, the last thing you
Speaker 9: do is talk to them about religion, because they're psychotic
Speaker 9: brains can't put it into rational terms. They twisted all up.
Speaker 9: So all this constant hearing while Andrea's psychotic, that you're evil,
Speaker 9: you're possessed, you're a wicked witch, you're destroying your children.
Speaker 9: Andrea's twisted mind made her start believing that, so that
Speaker 9: she started believing that she was possessed or full of Satan,
Speaker 9: if not Satan herself, and that she was destroying her children.
Speaker 9: And so that's when she eventually drowned the children because
Speaker 9: she thought the only way she could save them, the
Speaker 9: only way to get them away from Satan, who was herself,
Speaker 9: was to kill them, so then they could die and
Speaker 9: go to heaven and be safe with Jesus.
Speaker 7: Well, let's go backwards a little bit to set up
Speaker 7: this incredible thing, because I think that there's a lot
Speaker 7: happens before this, and obviously in hindsight, everybody's can see
Speaker 7: warning signs. But she has five children. Again, this medication
Speaker 7: has been altered, she has gone to the doctor or
Speaker 7: her husband is pleading. So what is the situation that
Speaker 7: everyone can see? And what we didn't talk about too,
Speaker 7: is that part of her anxiety is that she has
Speaker 7: let the children down, and she's critical of her own
Speaker 7: abilities as a homeschool teacher. So that's part of her
Speaker 7: duties as well, not only to raise and breastfeed and
Speaker 7: cook the meals and take care of the kids, it's
Speaker 7: also to homeschool them, entertain them, and five kids at
Speaker 7: one time. So tell us about the situation in terms
Speaker 7: of her doctor. Her psychiatrist, doctor sayid what he thinks
Speaker 7: is going on, will say just a week before or
Speaker 7: two weeks before, and how Russell feels about this, and
Speaker 7: what about the family members, her family, his family, what
Speaker 7: is the what is the situation their perspective on Andrea's
Speaker 7: mental health at that time previous to these murders.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm just looking here in the book where I'm
Speaker 9: talking about Rachel Warnecki directing Andrea to tide us too,
Speaker 9: and where she talks about the role of women to
Speaker 9: love their husbands, their children, be pure, be sensible, the
Speaker 9: workers at home kind and subject to their own husbands
Speaker 9: so that the word of God not be dishonored. So
Speaker 9: I believe that's what you were talking about. And she
Speaker 9: also wrote, Jesus knows how wicked you are, how weak
Speaker 9: and vulnerable, but God is able to sympathize with your weaknesses.
Speaker 9: Even the loneliness works to draw you to seek and
Speaker 9: find security in Him. And when she was in her
Speaker 9: last hospital stay, she would sort of mention to people
Speaker 9: the few times that she spoke about something about a
Speaker 9: bus and evil and Satan, and the nurses there were
Speaker 9: totally confused. But one of the bottom lines in this
Speaker 9: is the insurance. That the insurance was running out, and
Speaker 9: so the doctor, at least based on the notes that
Speaker 9: I saw and I went through I think a thousand
Speaker 9: pages of notes, many times page by page, comparing them.
Speaker 9: Andrew would be showing symptoms of psychosis and someone that's
Speaker 9: supposed to be psychosis free for X number of hours
Speaker 9: or days. Unfortunately I've forgotten before there released Well, it
Speaker 9: didn't matter if Andrea's insurance was running out, Suddenly she
Speaker 9: was marked psychosis free. And the notes that I saw
Speaker 9: about psychosis and psychotic behavior and hints of it and
Speaker 9: what doctor Sayid testified to were two different things. And
Speaker 9: he said she was never psychotic. Well, if she wasn't,
Speaker 9: then how come they had her on hal Doll. But
Speaker 9: two weeks before the murders, Doctor Sayid took Andrea off
Speaker 9: the how Doll And it takes approximately two weeks to
Speaker 9: get out of your system, so I think it was
Speaker 9: actually two weeks and two days that the murders happened.
Speaker 9: Just a few days before the murder happened, they had
Speaker 9: I believe, a father to day celebration with Andrea's family there,
Speaker 9: and Andrea's mother talked to Rusty and said, please do
Speaker 9: not leave her alone. Promise me you will not leave
Speaker 9: her alone with the kids. According to the mother, Rusty
Speaker 9: promised that unknown to her was that Rusty was already
Speaker 9: leaving Andrea alone. He would describe it as we were
Speaker 9: trying to wean her off of his mother who was
Speaker 9: staying with her. So that was what opened up the
Speaker 9: window of opportunity, if you want to say that, there
Speaker 9: was one that Rusty's mother would not show up until
Speaker 9: ten o'clock in the morning when Rusty went to work
Speaker 9: at nine, and she would leave about five o'clock, when
Speaker 9: Rusty would not get home until five thirty or six.
Speaker 7: Before Let's talk about one thing. What was it from doctor,
Speaker 7: said her tending psychiatrist. What was his rationale at that
Speaker 7: time for taking her off? The helldal.
Speaker 9: God only knows. And I mean that sincerely, because I
Speaker 9: talked with a nurse who used to work at the
Speaker 9: same facility, and she left and other employees left because
Speaker 9: of the lack of communication with doctor Sayid. They told
Speaker 9: me that he would walk by and wave at a
Speaker 9: patient and say that he had checked in with him.
Speaker 9: So my theory is that, hey, she's out of here,
Speaker 9: she's off insurance, you know, let's take.
Speaker 7: Her off, and we're talking about it. Just to be
Speaker 7: clear for the audience, we're talking ten days, ten days,
Speaker 7: the person was expected to be well in ten days,
Speaker 7: when probably even the most optimistic doctor would not even
Speaker 7: suggest that the medication would even kick in by that
Speaker 7: amount of time.
Speaker 9: Well, no, at that point, at that point, he was saying,
Speaker 9: everything is working. You know, let's take her off of this,
Speaker 9: because she was also out of the hospital, so she
Speaker 9: was still on medication when she was in the hospital,
Speaker 9: but then she was released. You know, everything I was
Speaker 9: told by someone I think it was one of the
Speaker 9: nurses I talked to that sayid had this theory about
Speaker 9: there are patients who will never get well, or let
Speaker 9: me rephrase that that there are doctors whose as psychiatrists
Speaker 9: who think that patients will never be well, so you
Speaker 9: just sort of keep them coming back, coming back, coming back,
Speaker 9: which eventually creates more money. And I gather, I'm not
Speaker 9: saying this is fact because doctor said would not talk
Speaker 9: to me, but that he felt like she was one
Speaker 9: of these so you just ship them.
Speaker 6: And again I'm not saying doctor said practices.
Speaker 9: I don't want to get sued, but there is a
Speaker 9: correlation in my mind.
Speaker 7: Okay, Susie, We're just going to stop for a second,
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Speaker 7: That's direct TV one eight five to five nine eight
Speaker 7: zero three eight one two. Susie, let's talk about the
Speaker 7: day in question. What happened previous to that, If there
Speaker 7: was any major events, anything that would in hindsight look
Speaker 7: like a foreboding, a warning. Tell us about the day
Speaker 7: or so the day before the events.
Speaker 9: Well, if it's okay with you, I would like to
Speaker 9: go back to what you were talking about about doctor
Speaker 9: Sayid and taking her off the medication. And if I
Speaker 9: can just read two or three paragraphs from the book
Speaker 9: that I think really answers your question. And it was
Speaker 9: on the last night of Andrea's second stay at the
Speaker 9: Devreeux Texas Treatment Network, which was the last hospital where
Speaker 9: she was, and he said that he Rusty said he
Speaker 9: arrived at six o'clock and he was stunned to find
Speaker 9: Andrea's standing with her packed bags. He asked the staff
Speaker 9: what was going on. They said Andrea was being released.
Speaker 9: According to Rusty, the nurses lowered their heads as if
Speaker 9: in shame and embarrassment, and turned to walk away without
Speaker 9: saying a word. Knowing that Andrea was too sick to
Speaker 9: be released. They couldn't do anything else, Rusty understood because
Speaker 9: the ten day insurance day had run out, so he
Speaker 9: took his wife home. And so then Rusty thought she
Speaker 9: was like sixty sixty five percent of herself, which always
Speaker 9: found it interesting that he described it that way. In percentage,
Speaker 9: and then it said on Monday, June eighteenth, he took
Speaker 9: Andrea back to doctor Sayid and told him that she
Speaker 9: wasn't doing well. According to Rusty, and I want to
Speaker 9: emphasize that's according to Rusty, the doctor wrote in his
Speaker 9: notes that she was doing well. Rusty protested and asked
Speaker 9: the doctor if her any depressant could be changed, and
Speaker 9: doctor Sayid, according to Rusty, again said well, since it's
Speaker 9: not working anyway, and he reduced her any depressant. And
Speaker 9: then that's where he was quoting the dosages and everything
Speaker 9: that you were talking about. And he said that the
Speaker 9: doctor was reducing it too much, and the doctor said
Speaker 9: it's okay. He knew what he was doing. And that
Speaker 9: night Rusty went to the pharmacy, got the new prescriptions filled,
Speaker 9: came home and gave them to Andrea. And then the
Speaker 9: quote in the book that he gave me. He came
Speaker 9: home and this was on a Monday, gave them to Andrea,
Speaker 9: and Wednesday morning, the kids were dead. Yeah, so I
Speaker 9: am guessing what you were talking about. Were you talking
Speaker 9: about filling the bathtub with water and you were saying
Speaker 9: about okay it when it actually happened seems to very
Speaker 9: depending on who you were talking to, but it seems
Speaker 9: that about a month or so before this, Andrea filled
Speaker 9: the bathtub with water in like the middle of the day,
Speaker 9: and Rusty's mother came in and saw this and said,
Speaker 9: what's going on? And Andrea said, I thought we might
Speaker 9: need it. One of her stories because Andrea psychotic, and
Speaker 9: her stories change over time, as one of the psychiatrists
Speaker 9: talked about, as she gets better, healthier mentally healthier, her
Speaker 9: mind is trying to make sense of what happened, so
Speaker 9: she starts putting rational thought and reasoning behind irrational, you know,
Speaker 9: old irrational thoughts and actions. So that makes the story
Speaker 9: kind of change over time as she's trying to rationalize things.
Speaker 9: So at one point her story was that she saw
Speaker 9: a water truck or a water tower and she was
Speaker 9: scared that they weren't going to be able to pay
Speaker 9: their bill or that there was not going to be
Speaker 9: enough water, and so she was putting the water in
Speaker 9: the bathtub to you know, have water in case the
Speaker 9: water got caught off. Other times she was saying that
Speaker 9: she was going to do that to drown the children.
Speaker 9: So it's hard to know what was reality when you're
Speaker 9: talking to a psychotic person or one who is coming
Speaker 9: out of psychosis and trying to make sense of the
Speaker 9: actions in the past.
Speaker 7: Does that make sense, Yes, it does. For the record,
Speaker 7: for all, for the official record, was she abusive at all?
Speaker 7: Was there any mistreatment of those children by Andrea Yates?
Speaker 9: Not that I'm aware of by Andrea. Absolutely not. I
Speaker 9: could not find one person who ever knew Andrea, who
Speaker 9: was ever a neighbor of hers, who ever spent time
Speaker 9: with her with children, whoever even just observed her walking
Speaker 9: into a store and a hair salon down the street,
Speaker 9: in the grocery store. I could not find one person
Speaker 9: who said one bad thing about Andrea. Rusty would send
Speaker 9: me videos of Andrea and b let me rephrase that.
Speaker 9: Rusty would send me videos that Andrea had taken of
Speaker 9: the kids because it seemed to be and I would
Speaker 9: stay up all hours of the night, get up in
Speaker 9: the middle of the night, go watch these videos. And
Speaker 9: it seemed to me that the camera and the kids
Speaker 9: were her only friends. And she would sit there and
Speaker 9: video tape the kids and talk to them and encourage
Speaker 9: them and on those videos. Because you never see Andrea
Speaker 9: since she's running the camera but she was always so encouraging,
Speaker 9: so proud of those kids, constantly teaching them and teaching
Speaker 9: them in a kind and tender way. Never heard her
Speaker 9: raise a voice, nothing. And so when the trial came,
Speaker 9: the first trial came, the judge allowed in those videos,
Speaker 9: but she would not allow in them sound, only the visual.
Speaker 9: So you saw these beautiful children laughing and having fun
Speaker 9: and playing, and you're in the jury or in the courtroom,
Speaker 9: you're going, oh my gosh, these fabulous kids. But because
Speaker 9: she would not allow the video, I mean the sound,
Speaker 9: the people in the courtroom, the jewors could not hear
Speaker 9: Andrea being such a great mother, encouraging the kids, teaching them,
Speaker 9: loving them, praising them. All they saw were the kids
Speaker 9: and then the visualization of this evil mother. Who how
Speaker 9: could she kill these beautiful children, which, of course we
Speaker 9: still all ask. The answer is psychosis, mental illness that
Speaker 9: went untreated or improperly treated.
Speaker 7: Let's talk about the day of the murder. You had
Speaker 7: spoke about Russell's mother, Dora, I believe, coming in to
Speaker 7: the home because they were aware that she shouldn't be
Speaker 7: alone with the children, and he, just as you had mentioned,
Speaker 7: he had promised to not leave her alone with the children.
Speaker 7: So there was certainly a major concern, a serious concern.
Speaker 7: So tell us what happens that day.
Speaker 9: Well, they get up, they're having some cereal. Now, mind
Speaker 9: you that Andrea's barely speaking to anyone. She's been mute
Speaker 9: for god knows how long. Her best friend said, she
Speaker 9: just spoke of very few words to her. Over months.
Speaker 9: She would basically look like a zombie. Maybe Pace wouldn't
Speaker 9: let go of baby Mary. She was just psychotic, you know,
Speaker 9: practically cannacotic. But Rusty left her and that there were
Speaker 9: cereal bowls on the table, and he liked to talk
Speaker 9: about how the kids loved to get their own breakfast.
Speaker 9: They wanted to do anything to help their mom. And
Speaker 9: she went in between nine and ten am, because Rusty
Speaker 9: left the house about five or ten minutes to nine
Speaker 9: because he needed to be at work at nine. And
Speaker 9: she filled the bathtub, put Mary in her in the
Speaker 9: bathroom with her on the base. Neet and I stood
Speaker 9: in this bathroom and stared down at the bathtub, and
Speaker 9: it's a tiny little place, and I would think when
Speaker 9: Mary's in the basinet next to the tub, there's not
Speaker 9: much room. But she first got a two year old
Speaker 9: Luke and drowned him, and then picked him up and
Speaker 9: carried him into the master bedroom where they had a
Speaker 9: mattress on the floor so that the kids could play
Speaker 9: in there, and tucked him in. And then go Paul
Speaker 9: the three year old, and drowned him, and went and
Speaker 9: did the same thing, and then five year old John
Speaker 9: went and tucked him in the bed. Then she drowned Mary.
Speaker 9: And then she went and got Noah, and Noah walked in.
Speaker 9: I believe it was Noah, and they had been Yeah,
Speaker 9: I'm pretty sure it was Noah. He looked and said,
Speaker 9: what's wrong with Mary? He fought the hardest. There were
Speaker 9: wet footprints up and down the tile floor. And she
Speaker 9: left Noah in the bathtub and picked up Mary and
Speaker 9: went and took her and put her in the bed
Speaker 9: with John and wrapped their hands around each other as
Speaker 9: if John were protecting her. And then she went and
Speaker 9: called the police and said, help, come here, killed my children.
Speaker 7: Does she call her husband?
Speaker 9: Yes, she did, and she called him and said come,
Speaker 9: and he goes, is there a problem? And he said
Speaker 9: she said yes, And he said is it the children?
Speaker 9: She said yes? And he said which one or how many?
Speaker 9: And she said all of them, and he went He
Speaker 9: called his mother and said, you know, where are you?
Speaker 9: I thought you were there or something, and they both
Speaker 9: raced over to the house.
Speaker 7: Why wasn't the mother there?
Speaker 9: She just didn't show up till ten o'clock, right. And
Speaker 9: one of the things I thought was really weird is
Speaker 9: when Rusty was giving one of his sidewalk press conferences,
Speaker 9: he said, I was hoping at least Noah was alive
Speaker 9: because sometimes my mother took one of the children home
Speaker 9: with her. Well, she was actually staying at an extended
Speaker 9: stay America. Well, I know that I was hoping Noah
Speaker 9: was with her because sometimes she takes one of them
Speaker 9: home at night with her to stay, you know, to
Speaker 9: give a break. And I thought, how weird that he
Speaker 9: didn't know where Sun was. And I want to make
Speaker 9: clear I am not a Rusty hater, because I tell
Speaker 9: people all the time there are people who hate Rusty
Speaker 9: and think he should be burning, and there are other
Speaker 9: people who think Rusty can do no wrong, that they
Speaker 9: love him. He would not believe the girls who were
Speaker 9: going after him thinking marriage material after all of this happened.
Speaker 9: And I always say Rusty's down the middle. He's not horrible.
Speaker 9: He's not perfect. If you're stuck on the side of
Speaker 9: the road with a flat tire, he's going to stop
Speaker 9: and help you out. He's a good guy like that.
Speaker 9: But one I have discovered, in fact, I even know
Speaker 9: this in my own life. You're faced with a loved
Speaker 9: one who has mental illness. You don't know what to do.
Speaker 9: So one time when Andrea called him at work on
Speaker 9: this was her first psychotic break, and she says help.
Speaker 9: He came home and she was chewing her fingers, she
Speaker 9: was shaking. He did not know what to do. He
Speaker 9: knew the beach, you know, calmed her down. The water
Speaker 9: calmed her down. So he piled all the kids into
Speaker 9: the car and with her and drove to Galveston and
Speaker 9: walked along the seawall, hoping that would calm her down.
Speaker 9: A lot of people say, that's insensitive, what a jerk, rusty.
Speaker 9: She was mentally ill. But he didn't know about mental illness.
Speaker 9: He was confused, he was scared. He didn't know what
Speaker 9: to do. But again, you know, when she's six the
Speaker 9: second time and he's like saying, oh man, I can't
Speaker 9: take her back over to Houston because I've got this
Speaker 9: project due Is that him being a jerk or is
Speaker 9: that him being a typical NASA engineer. From what I
Speaker 9: was told by the people who live and around NASA
Speaker 9: and know the people there, that's typical. The employees work
Speaker 9: one hundred hour weeks and they are focused totally on
Speaker 9: their job. And as I said, Rusty has tunnel vision.
Speaker 9: He doesn't see or comprehend anything that is out of
Speaker 9: his goal. Does that make him evil? Maybe? Insensitive? But
Speaker 9: I don't know if it makes him evil.
Speaker 7: I don't see any evil. I just see how it's
Speaker 7: a bizarre situation he finds himself in. But his response, again,
Speaker 7: I don't think there can be a normal response to
Speaker 7: any of this, especially now we've spoken about her calling
Speaker 7: nine to one one the police come. You introduce that's
Speaker 7: how you open your book very masterfully. You have a reporter.
Speaker 7: Of course, no one is used to something of this magnitude,
Speaker 7: regardless of their experience. So she calls nine one. What
Speaker 7: do the police find? Again we've talked about the murders,
Speaker 7: but what do the police find in terms of Andrea herself?
Speaker 7: What is Andrea's state when the police come? Because this
Speaker 7: is very important Later you talk about again, this is
Speaker 7: a bizarre story in American history with how much information
Speaker 7: is leaked to the media from the police. Very bizarre. Well,
Speaker 7: let's talk about what was Andrea's state after calling nine
Speaker 7: one one and the police arriving at the home and
Speaker 7: of course what they discover, But what's her state.
Speaker 9: Well, she's pretty much silent but cooperative, trying to be helpful.
Speaker 9: She's soaking wet, she looks kind of bizarre, you know,
Speaker 9: spaced out. But when the police needs something like where's
Speaker 9: the key or a cop or something, she points to
Speaker 9: where it is. She is cooperative, but she admits to everything.
Speaker 9: But I found it interesting that when the police handcuff
Speaker 9: her and walk her out to the police car to
Speaker 9: take her away, people who knew Andrea and see that
Speaker 9: video on the nightly news didn't ask recognize her. They
Speaker 9: just looked at her and went, who is that sick woman?
Speaker 9: So she's as I think the defense pointed out, she
Speaker 9: can answer yes, no questions, but she cannot tell you why.
Speaker 9: You know, why did you kill the kids? I'm a
Speaker 9: bad mother, you know, That's that's why you kill kids.
Speaker 9: I mean it just nothing makes sense. But as you mentioned,
Speaker 9: the police tape recorded the interview. But only after they
Speaker 9: had interviewed her a long time to get down a
Speaker 9: decent narrative where Okay, I know I can ask this
Speaker 9: question and will answer that. So it creates a narrative.
Speaker 9: Whether it's a truthful narrative, I don't know. It's just
Speaker 9: like how you can edit a book. You can take
Speaker 9: the facts and you can by the way you edit
Speaker 9: it can change the story up. Sure, and so you
Speaker 9: know they're getting the narrative they want. But they did
Speaker 9: not videotape her so that you can see what she
Speaker 9: is really like that basically person that's catatonic, that you're
Speaker 9: just moving around from place to place, leading her the
Speaker 9: woman who is seeing cinder block you know, cartoons and
Speaker 9: messages in the cinder block walls. Every video I saw
Speaker 9: of Andrea that was from July. This happened June twentieth,
Speaker 9: as you mentioned, but starting in July onward, every time
Speaker 9: she was interviewed, her glasses or cat eyed. Her clothes
Speaker 9: are following off. You know, she has on on a
Speaker 9: bra that's like the straps are falling off, and she's
Speaker 9: just she's not there. But what I was going to
Speaker 9: say is that everything is front of a cinder block wall.
Speaker 9: So when I was covering the trial, I was staying
Speaker 9: in a room with cinder block walls, and I remember
Speaker 9: going to bed at night staring at him, going, what
Speaker 9: is Andrea seeing?
Speaker 2: What is?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 9: I would just sort of try to figure out what
Speaker 9: the cartoons, what the messages were that she was seeing
Speaker 9: in those cinder block walls, because she would see them,
Speaker 9: and how disturbing that must have been, how frightening, how scary.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about the combination of the Werniki's, the evangelists,
Speaker 7: her mental illness, postpartum depression, and as they talk about
Speaker 7: at the trial, postpart psychosis. We talk about labels, but
Speaker 7: as soon as she is in custody, she talks about
Speaker 7: Satan and the nature of these crimes and her belief
Speaker 7: in Satan and sixty sixty six. So tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about what it manifests itself in terms of
Speaker 7: her beliefs about Satan and Satan's role in these crimes
Speaker 7: and her life.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 9: As I may have mentioned earlier that doctor Lucy Perrier
Speaker 9: said that Andrea Yates would have been mentally ill no
Speaker 9: matter what, but she never would have killed her children
Speaker 9: if not for the influence of Michael Warnecki, because as
Speaker 9: I mentioned to earlier, that when a person is psychotic,
Speaker 9: they can't rationalize, make sense of, you know, things from
Speaker 9: the Old Testament, the New Testament, or anything any kind
Speaker 9: of religion. It doesn't matter if it's Christianity or something else.
Speaker 9: It all gets twisted up in our brain. So she
Speaker 9: thought she had like I think, six six six carved
Speaker 9: in her head. She was constantly picking at her head
Speaker 9: trying to get rid of stuff. She was seeing these
Speaker 9: messages telling her, you know, you're an evil mother. You
Speaker 9: let your children eat too much sugar, too much, you know, candy.
Speaker 9: It was just silly things that if you're a rational
Speaker 9: human being, and she's thinking this, these are messages coming
Speaker 9: from the TV that they'll be watching, you know, a
Speaker 9: TV show, and all of a sudden, these cartoons flip
Speaker 9: out and give a direct message to her and her kids,
Speaker 9: and then flash back to the story. She would get
Speaker 9: evil messages from the movie, Oh, brother, Howard, what's the
Speaker 9: name of the movie? The James Yeah, and everything was
Speaker 9: just sending her these bizarre messages telling her how evil
Speaker 9: and crazy and horrible she will, and she believed them.
Speaker 9: And then slowly as they're trying to medicate her because
Speaker 9: when she was first arrested and they just basically threw
Speaker 9: her in a cell without anything, no clothes, know, nothing,
Speaker 9: so that she wouldn't harm herself. Yeah, incredible, and it
Speaker 9: sounds like you were about to ask a question. So
Speaker 9: that's why I stop.
Speaker 7: Sorry. Well, at the same time, again, you juxtapose us
Speaker 7: in the book to create the incredible dynamic that's going
Speaker 7: on at that time in this area of and also
Speaker 7: nationally as well. But with the very first inklings of
Speaker 7: what's going on in terms of an I had already
Speaker 7: mentioned that police are already maneuvering, manipulating, already siding with
Speaker 7: someone already in terms of leaking this information. They know
Speaker 7: that we'll be detrimental to Andrea Yates. So this is
Speaker 7: already overwhelm for a lot of people emotionally. So tell
Speaker 7: us about first what Russell Yates has to say about
Speaker 7: his the murder of his children and the rest of
Speaker 7: his wife, and then basically the story that the media
Speaker 7: has chose to put on the headlines, and how does
Speaker 7: the public react.
Speaker 9: Well, it's interesting because to me, when I would interview
Speaker 9: people in the clear Lake area, like I said, I
Speaker 9: couldn't find anyone to condemn Andrea. But if I would
Speaker 9: go into the Houston area where the police are leaking
Speaker 9: things constantly, because see, the murders happened on Wednesday. I
Speaker 9: believe the visitation for the children was the following Tuesday,
Speaker 9: and I believe it was at the visitation that Rusty
Speaker 9: was served with a gag order and that no one
Speaker 9: involved with the case, no witnesses, now, nothing could talk
Speaker 9: to the press. And Rusty was talking to the press
Speaker 9: a little bit, you know before then, you know, his
Speaker 9: sidewalk interviews. But despite the gag order, somebody, presumably the police,
Speaker 9: were constantly leaking little details to the press, and as
Speaker 9: you mentioned, they were things that made Andrea look horrible,
Speaker 9: and the defense could not respond. The judge did eventually
Speaker 9: lift the gag order so that the defense could say
Speaker 9: that they were starting a fund to help, you know,
Speaker 9: get donations for the defense.
Speaker 6: But that was it.
Speaker 9: They couldn't respond to any questions. What was interesting was
Speaker 9: that even the district attorney, Chuck Rosenthal, was breaking the
Speaker 9: gag order because he spoke to sixty minutes. Rusty spoke
Speaker 9: to sixty minutes, and people would say, oh, Rusty, you know,
Speaker 9: don't do that. He said, I'm not going to get
Speaker 9: in trouble because the DA talked to him, right, And
Speaker 9: I know that when I would like be in the
Speaker 9: elevator with him going up to you know, say the
Speaker 9: competency hearing or something, and Rusty would want to talk,
Speaker 9: but I would say, Rusty, don't do this. I don't
Speaker 9: want to get you in trouble. But the other thing
Speaker 9: was I didn't want to get myself in trouble because
Speaker 9: if you caught or did disobeyed any rule, the judge
Speaker 9: would throw you out, Like say, if you were in
Speaker 9: the courtroom and if you got sick and had to
Speaker 9: get out and run to the bathroom, you were not
Speaker 9: allowed back in. And because I quoted Rusty, because he
Speaker 9: did sit down and talk to me, when the actual
Speaker 9: trial came, the judge yanked my press credentials.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 9: And so I then had to go to the trial,
Speaker 9: like get to the courthouse several hours before the trial
Speaker 9: every day to then get a guest passed to get in.
Speaker 9: And then so the instead of being up where the
Speaker 9: at the front where the press was you know, was sitting,
Speaker 9: I had to be on the very back row. And
Speaker 9: so it was a rather in my opinion, vindictive judge
Speaker 9: who let things leak that she wanted but not other things.
Speaker 9: For the first time in my life, you had to
Speaker 9: go well, let me say, in my journalist's career, to
Speaker 9: get any files, you had to go through the judge.
Speaker 9: To get the files public records, you had to go
Speaker 9: through the judge. And then after the trial was over,
Speaker 9: the first trial was over, then that was announced that
Speaker 9: the judges got order was an illegal gag order.
Speaker 7: Interesting, you were very close to Russell Yates in terms
Speaker 7: of spending enough time with him to see him unguarded
Speaker 7: and will say guarded, and right from the very beginning.
Speaker 7: I had asked, but I want you to answer this
Speaker 7: in terms of again, not everybody would. It's not a
Speaker 7: foregone conclusion. What his response to this would be, the
Speaker 7: response to the five murders, the murders of his children.
Speaker 7: What does he say about his wife? What does he do?
Speaker 7: What's his response?
Speaker 9: I love her? This was not Andrea. This was the illness.
Speaker 9: He stood by her for a long time. And I
Speaker 9: get kind of upset when people say that Rusty was
Speaker 9: not emotional. Again, that's sort of the NASA way, But
Speaker 9: it was rare that I ever talked to Rusty that
Speaker 9: he didn't get sort of misty eyed, and you're right,
Speaker 9: when Rusty wasn't supposed to be talking to the press.
Speaker 9: I a friend or a woman I met, and clear
Speaker 9: Lake invited me to go to church, which was the
Speaker 9: church where Rusty was, you know, going, because Rusty and
Speaker 9: Andrea didn't have a church until this happened, and then
Speaker 9: they became he got involved with clear Lake Church of Christ,
Speaker 9: and so I got to know the pastor a little bit,
Speaker 9: and I would go to church there a few times.
Speaker 9: And as horrible it was, yes, I was going to
Speaker 9: try to see Rusty, I wasn't going.
Speaker 6: To talk to him.
Speaker 9: I was just going to observe, which some people would
Speaker 9: consider that kosher and others wouldn't. But then I would
Speaker 9: be invited to sit down with Rusty at the Potlack
Speaker 9: dinners after church, and Rusty knew who I was, you know,
Speaker 9: I wasn't hiding that, And so I would just observe
Speaker 9: him talking to people and maybe telling a few stories.
Speaker 9: And then at the competency hearing, I would talk to
Speaker 9: him a little bit, but again and trying to make
Speaker 9: sure that we don't cross any lines. Just saying hey,
Speaker 9: and one of the sort of good news bad news, thanks, well,
Speaker 9: obviously it's horrible. Bad news is when all of this
Speaker 9: was going on, the day before or the day the
Speaker 9: competency hearing was supposed to start was nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 9: All the media who had been all over Rusty immediately
Speaker 9: left and went to New York. And that meant Rusty
Speaker 9: didn't have anyone to talk to because he didn't have
Speaker 9: a lot of friends. The media were the people he
Speaker 9: confessed to that he talked to. So with that, Rusty
Speaker 9: would call me up on Saturday nights and say, hey,
Speaker 9: I know you're a nerd to I figured you wouldn't
Speaker 9: be doing anything, thank you, Russy. And so he and
Speaker 9: I would talk, and I went down to his house
Speaker 9: one night, because I live in Austin and you know,
Speaker 9: of course he's in Houston. I drove over there, met
Speaker 9: him at the house. We chatted for a while, and
Speaker 9: then we went out for pizza and talked for several hours,
Speaker 9: and then went back to his house and talked and
Speaker 9: talked again for a long time, in fact, until about
Speaker 9: one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 6: My mother got so worried that I hadn't checked in
Speaker 6: with her that she called the hotel making trust safe.
Speaker 6: I think she thought Rusty was going to do something
Speaker 6: to me. I don't know, but he's not that kind
Speaker 6: of guy. And I'm sorry, I have to throw sub
Speaker 6: levity into this or I'll start crying. And so, yeah,
Speaker 6: I spent many hours with him and then like many
Speaker 6: hours on the phone on Saturdays, there are Saturday nights.
Speaker 6: He was at an anti death penalty rally here in Austin.
Speaker 6: I met him there and spent time with him. Just
Speaker 6: before the trials. I went with a bunch of other
Speaker 6: reporters or actually I think it was TV news people
Speaker 6: to dinner with him and would talk to him during
Speaker 6: the trial. I also got to know Andrea's favorite brother
Speaker 6: and her mother during all of this. And two, I think,
Speaker 6: are just a wonderful family. And so how does Rusty
Speaker 6: deal with this?
Speaker 9: I believe you were saying, And what does he What
Speaker 9: I think what I was going to say is he
Speaker 9: would always say publicly, I support her. You know, this
Speaker 9: is not Andrea who did this. This is a sick woman.
Speaker 9: But yet he would go and try to fix up
Speaker 9: the house and clean it up an anticipation of Andrea
Speaker 9: coming home but then he would also privately express, oh, no,
Speaker 9: how does this work if we ever had kids again?
Speaker 9: And I couldn't believe it even think about that, but
Speaker 9: if can I trust her with the kids. So there
Speaker 9: was this argument constantly going on in his brain about
Speaker 9: wanting my wife back because I know that the person
Speaker 9: she really is is not the woman who killed the kids.
Speaker 9: But oh my gosh, she killed my kids. Is she
Speaker 9: ever gonna do something to me as well as future?
Speaker 9: So he was really torn.
Speaker 7: The incredible feature of this for people that live outside
Speaker 7: of America is that not every country is they would
Speaker 7: find this reaction to this crime. It's completely different. We
Speaker 7: had a case in Winnipeg, Canada, approximately two years ago
Speaker 7: where ironically or very quite similar, the woman was a fugitive,
Speaker 7: but they had found the children drowned in the bathtub.
Speaker 7: And in Canada because of course, we believe that we've
Speaker 7: evolved from the American system. Honestly, I'm not being a
Speaker 7: bit sarcastic, but it's a different mentality, and that people assumed,
Speaker 7: the media especially assumed, and the people followed that of
Speaker 7: course she must be suffering from postpartum depression, that's why
Speaker 7: she did that. There was no call for the you know,
Speaker 7: the fugitive to be hunted down, the murderous of her children.
Speaker 7: It was a complete opposite of what we see now
Speaker 7: that didn't happen that long ago. We're not talking about
Speaker 7: ancient history here with Andrea Yates. So tell us about
Speaker 7: the prosecution and what it was trying to do. We
Speaker 7: already alluded to the death penalty, but try to ca
Speaker 7: actually what you do in the book that the fervor
Speaker 7: behind the prosecution of Andrea Yeats.
Speaker 9: Oh god, it's just as you had brought up earlier
Speaker 9: about the reaction of people in Houston, And like you say,
Speaker 9: it wasn't just Houston, it was the entire nation. Because
Speaker 9: I believe I quoted in the book some sources on
Speaker 9: postpartum depression and psychosis out of Canada and the totally
Speaker 9: different attitude. England, I think has a totally different attitude.
Speaker 9: Even while this was going on, there was a case
Speaker 9: going on in California where they, you know, were understanding,
Speaker 9: this is a mental illness, we need to get her healthy,
Speaker 9: and that the sometimes hate that people would express. I
Speaker 9: remember doing radio shows where people would say, this could
Speaker 9: never happen in my family, and I'm going. Mental illness
Speaker 9: happens everywhere, you know, No, it could never happen in
Speaker 9: my family. She should burn And I still see this
Speaker 9: like on true crime websites and how evil and horrible,
Speaker 9: and the anger and the rage, particularly about the prosecutor,
Speaker 9: Kylin Wilford, it would just astound me. And so one
Speaker 9: day I saw Kaylen at a restaurant or something and
Speaker 9: I said, Helen, are you really believing everything you're saying?
Speaker 6: And she said, oh, yes and more.
Speaker 9: And I just get amazed at the rage. But then
Speaker 9: I'm not a mother and she is, so maybe that's
Speaker 9: the difference. But I look at this is let's learn
Speaker 9: from this so that we can prevent it from happening again.
Speaker 9: And the prosecution's attitude is the only way you're going
Speaker 9: to learn is to punish them. But if someone is
Speaker 9: mentally ill, do they really think punishment's going to matter?
Speaker 9: Andrea Yates wanted to be punished. She wanted to plead
Speaker 9: guilty so that they would put her to death. Does
Speaker 9: that even make sense? But the rage was there. But
Speaker 9: Joe Amby, who was the other prosecutor, I think he
Speaker 9: changed over time that he learned from this because he
Speaker 9: would go to conventions and stuff after this and talk
Speaker 9: about postpartum depression and psychosis, and he would do it
Speaker 9: with sensitivity from the learning point of view. And he
Speaker 9: is no longer with the prosecutor's office, So you're right.
Speaker 9: The prosecution went, we don't want them to talk about
Speaker 9: mental illness. We want them to see the clothing that
Speaker 9: the children were wearing, the photos of the autopsy photos.
Speaker 9: We're going to make her look.
Speaker 6: As evil as horrible as possible.
Speaker 9: And they succeeded, at least they succeeded with the help
Speaker 9: of false testimony.
Speaker 7: You know, we're all familiar with the phrase of vigorous defense,
Speaker 7: but this seemed like a vigorous prosecution in that this
Speaker 7: case hinges greatly on the testimony of an expert witness.
Speaker 7: Now we're going to introduce Park Deats and people will
Speaker 7: recognize that name. He's a criminal profiler from the Quantico
Speaker 7: Bunch after Robert K. Wrestler and John Douglas, So he's
Speaker 7: from one of those criminal profiler pioneers. And also that
Speaker 7: he is a consultant for the famous show that I
Speaker 7: spoke about in direct TV in Law and Order. And
Speaker 7: so tell us about first the initiative and the desire
Speaker 7: to have Park Deats as a expert psychiatrist doctor that
Speaker 7: would testify at the trial. And also we want to mention,
Speaker 7: and we spoke to this before about some people have
Speaker 7: a criticism of these kinds of people, especially when his
Speaker 7: price tag is five hundred dollars an hour and we're
Speaker 7: talking about fifty thousand dollars for his paycheck. So talk
Speaker 7: about explain why they chose Park Dats, what they thought
Speaker 7: they were going to or what they felt they were
Speaker 7: going to prove with his testimony. Tell us a little
Speaker 7: bit about Park Deats and his testimony.
Speaker 9: Mister celebrity walks in with his tin and his fancy
Speaker 9: clothes and ties and just sits down and the witness
Speaker 9: chair like it's a lounge chair at a Miami beach,
Speaker 9: you know, swimming pool, Like bring me my umbrella, drink,
Speaker 9: and y'all are all my subjects and maybe I'll tip
Speaker 9: you and maybe not. That's probably me being overreactive. As
Speaker 9: you can tell, I was unimpressed with the man because
Speaker 9: he is so impressed with himself. And also when he
Speaker 9: but he is a great expert witness and that he
Speaker 9: gets every testimony in at least three times he would
Speaker 9: say it, he would put it up on a you know,
Speaker 9: the video or the overhead projector the power point. You know,
Speaker 9: he would and then he would sum it up or whatever.
Speaker 9: And he got it in every time, three times, and
Speaker 9: the defense was only allowed to their stuff in once.
Speaker 9: And then he would edit the video that he because
Speaker 9: he interviewed Andrea quite a bit, and then edit it
Speaker 9: into video clips and he would leave out pertinent parts
Speaker 9: so that it made her well, it didn't tell the
Speaker 9: true story. And the defense would come in and would
Speaker 9: try to fill in the parts of the story that
Speaker 9: he left out. But again, when you're hearing that once
Speaker 9: compared to the three times, it's just totally biased. And
Speaker 9: by the way, the judge on the case is now
Speaker 9: with the DA's office, which is probably where she belonged.
Speaker 9: But obviously you can tell I'm not fond of the judge.
Speaker 9: She yanked my press credentials. I'm biased. But at one
Speaker 9: point Rusty was asked if Andrea liked the TV show
Speaker 9: Law and Order, and he looked confused and said yes,
Speaker 9: and he said we watched it together. And then part
Speaker 9: dates as you said, who was a consultant for Law
Speaker 9: and Order, said that there was an episode of a
Speaker 9: woman of the TV show of a woman who drowned
Speaker 9: her kids and got away got off on an insanity plea.
Speaker 9: And then in the closing eyems, the prosecution said that
Speaker 9: Andrea used this as a blueprint for murder. Now, my
Speaker 9: friend Suzanne O'Malley, guess I'm giving a plug for her
Speaker 9: book over mine.
Speaker 6: But I really want you to read my book. And
Speaker 6: my book, as I.
Speaker 9: Mentioned, came out before the trial. Suzanne wrote one after
Speaker 9: and Suzanne and I were at dinner after this testimony,
Speaker 9: and Suzanne used to write for Law and Order, and
Speaker 9: she was on the phone while we were having Mexican
Speaker 9: food with the producer of Law and Order and said,
Speaker 9: was there ever an episode like this? And he said
Speaker 9: absolutely not. So Suzanne then went to the defense and said,
Speaker 9: this is false testimony. This never happened. She hooked them
Speaker 9: up with the prosecute, I mean with the Law and
Speaker 9: Order producer. They took this to the court, to the judge,
Speaker 9: and all she did was stipulate that you know, there
Speaker 9: had been no such episode, and so of course the
Speaker 9: defense asked for a mistrial. She would not allow it.
Speaker 9: She told the in one word, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 9: and one phrasing told the jury to ignore that, you know, testimony,
Speaker 9: but then in the next sent it's like, consider all
Speaker 9: the testimony. So then they came back with a guilty verdict.
Speaker 9: And then later on years later, it ended up that
Speaker 9: the conviction was overturned because of the false testimony that
Speaker 9: part Deeps gave.
Speaker 7: Now let's explain a little bit more why that is.
Speaker 7: Let's I'll go back to sort of my interpretation of
Speaker 7: this in terms of park Deats was on there to
Speaker 7: do the almost the unspeakable as a psychiatrist claimed that,
Speaker 7: of course she was psychotic or at some point, but
Speaker 7: however she saw law and Order episode, which again he
Speaker 7: more than eludes and intimates that that was a conniving, psychopathic,
Speaker 7: planning kind of person that would take that program and
Speaker 7: be influenced to kill her own children. And he kept
Speaker 7: they kept getting him to answer questions in his cross
Speaker 7: examination or his direct examination to speak to the wrongfulness
Speaker 7: of her actions despite her mental illness. So it was
Speaker 7: very and you captured in the book how really had
Speaker 7: to straddle a sort of a ridiculous line. And from
Speaker 7: that trial that was not done well at all. There
Speaker 7: was grounds for appeal and of course the defense learned
Speaker 7: from that first trial and learned some very valuable lessons
Speaker 7: which assisted them greatly in the second trial, didn't they.
Speaker 9: Oh yes, And like you were saying part deeps when
Speaker 9: he was on you know, testifying. One day he's like, yeah,
Speaker 9: she was not mentally ill. She was blah blah blah,
Speaker 9: you know, and she was not psychotic in everything. And
Speaker 9: then the next day he's like, eh, oh, well, yeah,
Speaker 9: and he sort of tended that, yes, she was, you know,
Speaker 9: suffering psychosis, but that was a few minutes later, you know,
Speaker 9: one when she was actually drowning the kids, it was
Speaker 9: a few minutes later. And like there would be things
Speaker 9: where he'd say, uh, if if she truly were, you know,
Speaker 9: trying to save the children, she would have been praying
Speaker 9: for them. And so then he cuts out the video
Speaker 9: where she says, what were you doing? And she said
Speaker 9: praying for them, but he cuts that out. And because
Speaker 9: her answers would change from time to time, because one,
Speaker 9: she's a mentally ill person suffering psychosis, And the videos
Speaker 9: were taken at different dates. There were videos made by
Speaker 9: one psychiatrist in July, others made in November, and by
Speaker 9: then her psychosis is declining, you know, they're getting it
Speaker 9: under more control, so her answers are going to change.
Speaker 9: So it didn't ever make sense that he was trying
Speaker 9: to apply November answers to her actions back and June.
Speaker 9: And you're right, the prosecute, I mean, the defense learned
Speaker 9: from this one. They said that park Deats was never
Speaker 9: the same when they came back to trial. The other
Speaker 9: expert witness they brought in was a little too slick,
Speaker 9: and the city had learned from that. Plus all these
Speaker 9: years later, the county of Harris County where Houston is,
Speaker 9: had learned and understood postpartum depression, psychosis and mental illness better.
Speaker 9: And as you said, their own witnesses, who had never
Speaker 9: been you know, not none of them, but many of
Speaker 9: them had never testified before, learned a little bit better
Speaker 9: about what to expect and knew what how to handle
Speaker 9: things better.
Speaker 7: And like you say, to the nation had evolved in
Speaker 7: a short period of time, and this case was a
Speaker 7: catalyst for that. Because this was on Newsweek, and like
Speaker 7: you say, sixty minutes, this dominated mainstream media and captivated
Speaker 7: and fascinated the American society. And like you say it,
Speaker 7: because of this case and other cases, but especially this
Speaker 7: case that it really galvanized this issue in America by
Speaker 7: that time. The thing that I want to ask, and
Speaker 7: this is, I think this is mind boggling to me.
Speaker 7: I couldn't even believe I was reading this that there
Speaker 7: was some consideration by the prosecution of charging Russell Yates.
Speaker 7: Tell us on how on earth they could even imagine
Speaker 7: and what would they charge Russell Yates for? Potentially that's why.
Speaker 9: They didn't is they couldn't think of anything. I really
Speaker 9: think that was a pr ploy. I think that it
Speaker 9: was a pr ploy to go for the death penalty.
Speaker 9: It was a pr ploy to satisfy the voters of
Speaker 9: Harris County to say we're looking into Rusty Yates because
Speaker 9: so many wanted him to burn and to this day
Speaker 9: still do.
Speaker 8: So.
Speaker 9: I don't think they ever had any intention of pursuing that.
Speaker 9: It was just okay, you know, we yeah, we're going
Speaker 9: to tell the public dis That is my personal opinion,
Speaker 9: and as a journalist I shouldn't express that, but hey,
Speaker 9: that's my personal opinion.
Speaker 7: It is incredible to me as well, the importance and
Speaker 7: the undue negative influence that politics has in the judiciary.
Speaker 7: When you have sheriffs and district attorneys using cases to
Speaker 7: again pr public relations. You should be embarrassed at the
Speaker 7: public relations that you're doing when the husband is supportive
Speaker 7: of the woman and is totally against the death penalty,
Speaker 7: and the state usually gives lip service to the idea
Speaker 7: that they care about what the victims, and this man
Speaker 7: is a victim, what the victim would have to say
Speaker 7: in terms of how he thought his wife should be
Speaker 7: treated and if he was totally against the death penalty.
Speaker 7: This is another slap in the face of Russell Yates.
Speaker 7: And then to even consider that he might be charged
Speaker 7: based on again the input from the maybe ridiculous community
Speaker 7: in their attitude.
Speaker 9: So yeah, where I live in Travis County, Texas, I
Speaker 9: have had prosecutors tell me we always consider the victim's
Speaker 9: family and what they want, and if they say don't
Speaker 9: go for the death penalty, we won't go for it,
Speaker 9: but that it didn't matter there. You know, we'd Rusty's
Speaker 9: family wrote and begged to not go for the death penalty,
Speaker 9: Andrea's family there was not one person, not one family
Speaker 9: member that wanted the death penalty. And you know, I
Speaker 9: get a lot of people who jump on me wanting
Speaker 9: me to totally slam Rusty Yates, and I won't do
Speaker 9: it because I've never been the parent of five kids
Speaker 9: who died, and I respect that what he has gone through,
Speaker 9: and I am not going to slam a man who
Speaker 9: has lost five children and his wife.
Speaker 7: Let's just talk quickly because we don't have that much time.
Speaker 7: But I want to talk quickly about the reversal at
Speaker 7: the second trial and what was the result for Andrea Yates. Again,
Speaker 7: you capture it and painted an incredible portrait of what
Speaker 7: happened after that and what was her mental state. So
Speaker 7: tell us what happened at the second trial and as
Speaker 7: a result, what was Sir Fate.
Speaker 9: Well, they could not go for the death penalty again
Speaker 9: because that would have been double jeopardy. So that way
Speaker 9: they could not get a death qualified jury because you know,
Speaker 9: people who believe in the death penalty are more than
Speaker 9: likely going to are more likely to convict than people
Speaker 9: who don't believe in the death penalty. So that went
Speaker 9: for them. The education that we've already talked about about
Speaker 9: the nation that it's calmed down about this, that part
Speaker 9: deets was no longer credible and that the defense was
Speaker 9: more credible this time with their witnesses, and so all
Speaker 9: of that worked out so that the end result is
Speaker 9: the exact same result the state would have had if
Speaker 9: they had never prosecuted her and sent her straight to
Speaker 9: a mental health facility. Because she is now living at
Speaker 9: the Kerrville State Hospital, which is a mental health facility.
Speaker 9: She will be there for the rest of her life.
Speaker 9: And the Harris County taxpayers have been out millions of
Speaker 9: dollars for this trial. And if the DA's office had
Speaker 9: done what I believe would have been the right thing
Speaker 9: to send her straight to a mental health facility, they
Speaker 9: could have saved all that money and had the exact
Speaker 9: same result.
Speaker 7: You describe Andrea Yeats in the hospital. There's been progress,
Speaker 7: but what is her mental state?
Speaker 9: According to her attorney, she's now doing pretty well. After
Speaker 9: she was convicted, it would be up and down, up
Speaker 9: and down. She would start getting healthier, and then she
Speaker 9: would realize what she had done and she would go
Speaker 9: back into psychosis and are try to kill herself by
Speaker 9: perhaps starving herself to death. Then Rusty finally divorced her.
Speaker 9: I broke the story that Rusty wanted to you know,
Speaker 9: had asked her for a divorce because he did not
Speaker 9: want to look like the bad guy. Rusty didn quit
Speaker 9: speaking to me at that point because he wanted Andrea
Speaker 9: to file for the divorce so he wouldn't look like
Speaker 9: the bad guy, and she refused, so they eventually divorced,
Speaker 9: which I think kind of freed her up over time
Speaker 9: that they are still in touch. I got emphasized that
Speaker 9: he sees her and talks to her ever so often,
Speaker 9: but she has gotten to a point where her medications
Speaker 9: are leveled out, and that she is living a somewhat
Speaker 9: productive life in that the staffs and other inmates at
Speaker 9: the state hospital are basically her friends and family. She
Speaker 9: does crafts that are sold anonymously at craft shows, and
Speaker 9: there's a photo of some of her crafts in the book,
Speaker 9: and then she takes that money and donates it to
Speaker 9: the YH Children or the Postpartum Foundation that has been
Speaker 9: founded after all of this, so that she's not keeping
Speaker 9: the money or anything. She's not getting rich or anything
Speaker 9: like that. She is just getting by. There was a
Speaker 9: time where she wanted to be able to get out
Speaker 9: because her mother is very, very ill, and she wanted
Speaker 9: to take care of her mother, and that did not happen.
Speaker 9: She wanted to be able to just go to church,
Speaker 9: you know, to leave the campus for a little bit
Speaker 9: to go to church. The church was okay with it,
Speaker 9: the hospital was okay with it, but other people weren't.
Speaker 9: So that's been you know, just but I'm rambling all
Speaker 9: around to tell you it ain't been easy for because
Speaker 9: she realizes what she did and she can't handle it,
Speaker 9: and she's trying to and she is trying to make
Speaker 9: amends and be a decent member of society as much
Speaker 9: of a society as she can in a state hospital.
Speaker 7: The interesting difference between Canada and say, Britain and other
Speaker 7: countries too is that there is the possibility of a
Speaker 7: person deemed not criminally responsible for being deemed sane. I
Speaker 7: guess that wouldn't be the distinction, but they would be
Speaker 7: released from a hospital for those that fear that that's
Speaker 7: what this really is, rather than have somebody thrown into
Speaker 7: a hospital immediately, the public fears that this person may
Speaker 7: be released someday by some well meaning psychiatrist and sort
Speaker 7: of sympathetic body or other in charge parole board. What
Speaker 7: are the possibilities or the potential for Andrea Yates of
Speaker 7: ever being released from the hospital.
Speaker 9: Well, the judge, the judge is the one who would
Speaker 9: sign off on this, and I don't think a judge
Speaker 9: would ever do that. And George Parnham, Andrea's attorney, told
Speaker 9: me that after they saw the reaction of Andrea just
Speaker 9: trying to get out to go to church and come back,
Speaker 9: that they said that's it. They're never going to try
Speaker 9: to get her released, and that she you know, she
Speaker 9: doesn't really have I mean, she has family, but I
Speaker 9: don't think any that she could go live with right now.
Speaker 9: Her mother is very very ill, her favorite brother Brian
Speaker 9: is deceased, and so she feels safe and secure at
Speaker 9: the Kerville Hospital, and so they have no desire or
Speaker 9: intention of ever letting her even apply to the judge
Speaker 9: to get out again.
Speaker 7: In this as we wrap this up, is there some
Speaker 7: concern for the as you put out, as you point
Speaker 7: out in the book, that this ten day psychiatric deadline
Speaker 7: for people because of insurance that the insurance had run out.
Speaker 7: Is this really a big concern for people that are
Speaker 7: listened to this story and now hearing other stories be
Speaker 7: a reason a reasonable person one day turns into a
Speaker 7: murder another day. There is this a valid issue, the
Speaker 7: idea that the America deals with mental patients inadequately because
Speaker 7: of the insurance model that they have.
Speaker 9: Well, I think part of it is the taboo and
Speaker 9: the expense. I wish I were more knowledgeable on this
Speaker 9: about how things have changed with Obamacare, and I'm not,
Speaker 9: but I would like to dream and think that there's
Speaker 9: a little bit of more you know, mental health understanding.
Speaker 9: And now you're making me want to pull out my
Speaker 9: insurance policy and look at it to see what it
Speaker 9: exactly says. But yes, I think it's still an issue
Speaker 9: because psychiatric care is expensive. Psychiatric medicines are expensive.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm looking at you mentioned in the book that
Speaker 7: you've talked about. I was surprised as well, because there's
Speaker 7: obviously different prices, but that the medication that you was
Speaker 7: prescribed the second time around was six to seven hundred
Speaker 7: dollars per month. If that was not just one medication,
Speaker 7: but it was six or seven hundred dollars is daunting
Speaker 7: for a lot of people. That additional seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 9: Fifteen years ago, or that was nearly fifteen years ago,
Speaker 9: can you imagine what it is today? So, yeah, I
Speaker 9: think we still have you know, severe prejudices against mental
Speaker 9: illness and how to treat it from an insurance point
Speaker 9: of view as well as from a public point of view.
Speaker 9: I still have letters and emails from people, primarily these days,
Speaker 9: emails saying thank you for speaking out about mental illness
Speaker 9: because I've suffered from horrible depression or I've suffered from this,
Speaker 9: and I'm embarrassed to say this because I talk about
Speaker 9: because of this case that I have been to a psychiatrist,
Speaker 9: I have, you know, used medications, psychotropic drugs and everything,
Speaker 9: because one, I've always suffered depression and after this case,
Speaker 9: I did horribly. And I am far from the only
Speaker 9: journalists or even someone I know people who were witnesses
Speaker 9: in the trial who had to go on antidepressants after
Speaker 9: this case because it got to us so badly. So
Speaker 9: anything I can do to get people to talk about
Speaker 9: this and not be ashamed of it. I mean, look
Speaker 9: at the TV show Nashville Now and their postpartum depression storyline,
Speaker 9: and Hayden and I never can pronounce her last name
Speaker 9: starts with a P who employs Juliette Barnes. How she
Speaker 9: has gone public right now, just in the past few
Speaker 9: weeks about her postpartum depression, how Brooke Shields has talked
Speaker 9: about it, how Marie Osmon, and as long as we
Speaker 9: can get people to talk about it instead of being
Speaker 9: ashamed of it and realize that it's not a matter
Speaker 9: of just buck up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps,
Speaker 9: that this is a real illness that can be treated.
Speaker 9: That's what I want people to learn from from this,
Speaker 9: that one mental illness can happen in the best of families,
Speaker 9: the worst of families in between. Doesn't matter your education,
Speaker 9: your income level, you're smart, it can happen, and if
Speaker 9: it does, don't be ashamed. It's like cancer, the flu
Speaker 9: or whatever. Get to a doctor and get help.
Speaker 7: I think the thing is in just in closing too, though,
Speaker 7: is that with the differences in say Canada, for example,
Speaker 7: we also have to be cautious. And I think that's
Speaker 7: what some of the more the audience that seems to
Speaker 7: be savvy, you know, law enforcement people, people in corrections,
Speaker 7: people into judiciary that really are pessimistic because of their experience,
Speaker 7: realize that the difference sometimes is the psychiatrist and the
Speaker 7: attorney's depiction of mental illness. So people are justifiably skeptical
Speaker 7: because they do see cases in Canada and other jurisdictions
Speaker 7: where the mental illness is used as an excuse for again,
Speaker 7: it should not be included with other valid, mentally ill defendants.
Speaker 7: And so I think that's what some people are skeptical about.
Speaker 7: How again, an unscrupulous psychiatrist paired with another unscrupulous attorney
Speaker 7: can use the same amount of information and these kinds
Speaker 7: of cases to represent their clients, again when they're not
Speaker 7: really mentally ill. And again you might not see examples
Speaker 7: glaring examples in America, but if you were to go
Speaker 7: over the border and look at some interesting cases like
Speaker 7: the doctor Turcotte case in Montreal right now, where he
Speaker 7: has stabbed his kids forty nine times and was into
Speaker 7: a mental institution and only served six months in that
Speaker 7: institution and was deemed mentally insane because of depression. So
Speaker 7: I think there is some validity to some of the skepticism.
Speaker 7: But as your book points out, this is an historic
Speaker 7: case where it seemed to be a clear cut case
Speaker 7: of a woman just going off the rails from postpartum
Speaker 7: depression and psychosis, while the mental health professionals either looked
Speaker 7: the other way in the insurance company and in the
Speaker 7: confluence of events created this very very tragic situation that again,
Speaker 7: like you say, hopefully hopefully this book will help people
Speaker 7: understand the situation and somehow hopefully that this might be
Speaker 7: avoided just even once.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that's the point that I would say,
Speaker 9: this could have been prevented if we're not so ashamed
Speaker 9: of mental health issues, This could have been prevented. And
Speaker 9: in the United States, I think I'm sure that somebody
Speaker 9: could give me examples of someone who was you know,
Speaker 9: found not guilty by reason of insanity and got out.
Speaker 9: But I think it's going to be a lot harder
Speaker 9: to get out of a mental health facility in the
Speaker 9: United States just because of our attitudes. And I may
Speaker 9: be very wrong.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 9: Look at Robert Durst, who was obviously mentally ill, as
Speaker 9: you know, been charged with one crime that he got
Speaker 9: off of and then charged with another crime. And it's
Speaker 9: going to be interesting to me to see what happens
Speaker 9: with that because his attorney is Dick Degaron, who was
Speaker 9: the attorney in another book I wrote, The Fortune Hunter,
Speaker 9: which was about the two people who met in a
Speaker 9: mental health facility and then killed someone, you know, planned
Speaker 9: it together and to me that in that case his
Speaker 9: client there, I said, if that's not not guilty by
Speaker 9: reason of insanity, that one would have been one he
Speaker 9: could have done as a woman named Celeste Beard, because
Speaker 9: in Texas, the baseline is did they know the difference
Speaker 9: between right and wrong when they committed the crime? And
Speaker 9: Celeste Beard in that case the Fortune Hunter, I say,
Speaker 9: she didn't because whatever Celeste wanted was right, you know,
Speaker 9: that was her belief. And so it's going to be
Speaker 9: really interesting to me to see how Dick Degeron handles
Speaker 9: the Robert Durst case out in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 7: Well, again, it's another issue too, because the Durst case
Speaker 7: is incredible when you have a multi millionaire and the
Speaker 7: means to have the best lawyer in the country, and
Speaker 7: that's arguable too if he's the best, but at least
Speaker 7: when you have the means. So that's that's almost a
Speaker 7: different dynamic just because of the money involved. But yes,
Speaker 7: again that's you did allude to that, that is your
Speaker 7: I guess we'll have to have you back on to
Speaker 7: talk about Fortune Hunter as well. So tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about Fortune Hunter before we let you go.
Speaker 7: In anticipation of you coming back on and talking about that.
Speaker 9: Well, the Fortune Hunter is really interesting because the judge
Speaker 9: and one of the defendants, Tracy Charlton, and I all
Speaker 9: went to the same summer camp. And Tracy Charlton again
Speaker 9: one of the defendants. She worked was a manager at
Speaker 9: book People bookstore, which used to be may probably still
Speaker 9: is the largest and best independent bookstore in Texas. And
Speaker 9: Tracy has done did a lot to promote my first book, Wasted,
Speaker 9: and she met at a mental health facility a woman
Speaker 9: named Celeste Beard who Celeste was a young, attractive, charming,
Speaker 9: but yet vile woman who married an old man, a
Speaker 9: rich old man, and couldn't wait for him to die,
Speaker 9: so coaxed Tracy into trying to kill him. And all
Speaker 9: of that happened just a few blocks from where I
Speaker 9: was living at the time, so it was a case that.
Speaker 7: I have a lot of connections to close to home. Yeah,
Speaker 7: me see, absolutely. Well, it's been great, Susie's talking about
Speaker 7: Breaking Point. This has turned into a real true crime classic,
Speaker 7: especially with the addition of this additional information and still
Speaker 7: the fascination with people trying to understand how somebody, how
Speaker 7: anyone could do something like this and how it can
Speaker 7: even be possible, so incredible story. Congratulations on the new
Speaker 7: edition of the book, and thank you for coming on
Speaker 7: and talking about Breaking Point and we look forward to
Speaker 7: talking to you in the near future.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 9: All Right, thank you.
Speaker 7: Good night, Susie, good night.